


The Mechanisms fight a Really Big Bug

by WillowWispFlame



Series: So Sings a Song of Slaughter [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Drinking, Gen, Slaughter Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The Mechanisms Are Grifter's Bone, The Mechanisms Were The Archivist's College Band, The Mechanisms!Basira, The Mechanisms!Jon, The Mechanisms!Jordan Kennedy, there's a really big bug in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowWispFlame/pseuds/WillowWispFlame
Summary: The Mechanisms wind down from another performance by killing a rather large bug.The sweet song of violence owns their souls.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: So Sings a Song of Slaughter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775218
Comments: 19
Kudos: 219
Collections: So Sings a Song of Slaughter





	The Mechanisms fight a Really Big Bug

**Author's Note:**

> Bug the end notes for what kind of bug it is if bugs bug you. Awful joke, I know, but hey if certain bugs skeeve you out, I want to make sure you're informed!
> 
> Lyrics from "Old King Cole" - [https://youtu.be/DO8M2WnggXQ](https://youtu.be/DO8M2WnggXQ) in italics.

Another year, another performance. 

“ _ Once upon a time, in a far off sector of a very old galaxy, there lived a king... _ ” Jonny d’Ville began.

As Jonny finished the beginning interlude, Gunpowder Tim began to strum at the strings of his guitar. They were already caught up in the spell of violence, bloodthirsty grins overtaking them both. The rest of the Mechanisms held small, tight grimaces as they prepared for what came next. 

“ _ Old King Cole was a brutal soul, and a bloody old soul had he... _ ”

Marius von Raum joined Jonny and Tim as he plucked at his fiddle. The so-called Medic had just started nursing school, but fell to violence just as easy as the rest. 

The crowded bar had stiffened, attention rapt to the stage. A shiver ran through them, The band held their breath as Jonny came to the end of the first verse. Drumbot Brian hit the bass of his drum set, the dull thump sending a jolt through both the band and the crowd. The Mechanisms straightened as one, grimaces turning to wide smiles as the chorus began, and they started to play their instruments in a bloody cacophony. 

“ _ Factories churn, bodies burn, _

_ Stars are shining bright. _

_ It’s your turn, now you learn _

_ How King Cole feasts tonight. _ ”

The audience began shoving against each other where they had gathered near the stage during Jonny’s initial call. In less than an hour, they would all be as dead as King Cole’s victims, and their lives would feed the bloody band just as well. 

“ _ Oh, never to forgive, he would eternal live, his hands stained red from gore. _ ”

Though just one song was often enough to satiate their thirst, and kill the entire room, this concert would drag out the violence into a full course meal. 

As the Mechanisms finished their chorus and Jonny described New Constantinople and the bloody scene at its heart to Drumbot Brian’s steady beat and Marius von Raum’s hiccuping fiddle, the audience remained spell bound. They were like children gathered around for story time, silent and still as long as the narrator spun his tale of blood. 

As Jonny began the final verse and the band joined him, the crowd shook with barely contained movement, clutching onto each other with barely restrained fear. The final chorus spilt the first blood of the night, as nails bit into skin and tore through companions’ arms. The Toy Soldier’s glockenspiel pattered out its joyful beat through it all. 

[]++++||=======>

Only a year after their encounter with the band known to some as Grifter’s Bone, the Mechanisms stumbled through the streets of London, boozed up to their gills after the night’s performance. They had switched out of their costumes and stashed their instruments at Raphaella’s flat. The blood would never completely wash out, but such details on eccentric outfits were hardly questioned. 

They hadn’t bothered with trying to remove the makeup which detailed dark markings like cracks spreading from their eyes, though Drumbot Brian had wiped off the majority of the face paint which made him look more metal than human. It made them look like they had the worst eye bags in Europe, but they did not really care.

Ivy Alexandria ripped a pole out of the ground with inhuman strength, holding it aloft over her head like a baton. The band cheered her feat of strength and continued down the street with her as their marching leader. They swayed, jostling and pushing into each other as they went. 

Some roughhousing was in need to chase away the sweet song of violence that stuck to their bodies like a spider’s web. The Mechanisms did not realize it yet, but they were looking for a fight. No puny mortal was worth their time, something deep inside the bloodstained souls of the band yearned for a brawl that would spill both their own blood and that of their enemies. The sweet song of the Slaughter had claim over them, especially tonight of all nights. 

So when the Mechanisms came across a praying mantis the size of a small car scuttling along in the middle of the street, their initial thought was not to run away from the obviously supernatural bug. No, they challenged it. 

Ivy charged forward with a roar, thwacking the mantis on the side of its body with her pole. The other Mechanisms followed soon after, picking up various objects lying on the side of the road or simply going in with bare fists. Ashes had somehow retrieved their police baton and swung it at the head of the creature as it struck out a leg at Gunpowder Tim. 

The mantis backed up away from the Mechanisms, retreating in confusion. 

That is when Jonny pulled out a forgotten harmonica out of a pocket in his jeans and blew a short melody through it. 

The mantis immediately halted, its animalistic brain switching from flight to fight in an instant. It charged the group, ignoring its already injured exoskeleton to lash out. The Mechanisms met the challenge with bloodthirsty grins and bludgeons made out of discarded pipes and trash. 

By the time they had taken the monster out and left it a dripping husk on the ground, the Mechanisms had worked the song that had gripped them so tightly out of their systems. They panted in exertion, dropping their personas and staring dully at the bug corpse in front of them. Several of their number were bruised, but no one had been seriously injured by the fight.

Jon stared at his harmonica, intrigued. He had pulled it out instinctively, hardly giving it a thought in the moment. He reviewed what had happened. The mantis had looked like it was going to run and escape the bloody fate the Mechs had wrought upon it, and leave them in disappointment, but a short melody had been enough of a cause for it to return for blood. 

Jordan clapped him on the shoulder, jolting Jon out of his thoughts. “Basira’s gonna call her buddies on the force,” he slurred, leaning heavily on Jon’s shoulder. “I’ve been a-an exterminator for years a-and I’ve never seen a bug that big before.” Jon slung a supporting arm around his friend’s shoulders. The two started to follow the others, who were disposing of their goo-covered improvised weapons in a dumpster and checking over their bruises. Neither of them had been hit by the mantis, so they slumped to sit against the wall of the alley. 

After a few minutes, Basira joined the group. “Cops are on their way,” she said, glancing between her baton and the dumpster before shrugging and wiping off the stick with a napkin and tossing that instead. A bead of sweat dripped down her face, and she smeared the thick wings of her eyeliner with the base of her palm. “They won’t be here any time soon, but we might as well head home.”

The group, slightly sobered by the second violent event of the evening, made their way to a more crowded road to get away from the bug. 

“Why is this happening to us?” Kofi, aka Marius von Raum, burst out angrily as they walked down a quiet street lined with dark storefronts. “First that other band crashes our show, somehow inspiring everyone in the building to literally fight each other to the death. Then, at the next gig, the same thing happens but it is our music instead. The Mechanisms break up until we can figure out why every single new performance or even our new recordings cause people to go nuts and start fighting each other. Now tonight, literally a year after that band cursed us, we all end up together and performing again! What the fuck!”

“I’m too drunk for this,” Jessica, the Toy Soldier, slurred. She was leaning heavily on Alex, Ivy Alexandria, who had a pensive look on his face. Jessica’s painted-on moustache was two streaks on her cheeks which made her cherubic face look more like an American football player than a doll. 

“Do any of us remember actually planning this?” asked Ben, aka Drumbot Brian.

They all shook their heads. Then no, they didn’t. 

“There was something,” Raphaella quietly spoke up. “About a month ago, I saw a flier for the venue we were at. I-I thought about how, if it was last year, we could have performed there.” She started to tear up.

Basira laid a hand on her shoulder, murmuring, “It isn’t your fault, shhh.”

“I, uh, I noticed myself feeling this, uh. This drive to perform, a few weeks ago. I thought it was just me missing the Mechs,” Jon said miserably. “Then last week I couldn’t focus, and I found myself digging my old Jonny outfit out of storage.”

The others muttered in agreement, slowly realizing that they had all felt the call over the last week.

“More stupid supernatural bull then,” Jordan slurred from his place on Jon’s shoulder.

“I don’t think it is a coincidence that it has been a year since last time,” Alex interjected. “What if this curse, like, compels us to perform? During the show, it felt like something empty in me was being filled up. I had noticed it before, something like hunger? Whatever it was, it wasn’t full for so long, until tonight.” 

“Do you think that if we planned it, then we could have avoided killing so many?” Basira wondered aloud.

Their steps faltered as the group fell into stunned silence.

“Do you think that could actually work?” Jon asked, voice full of tentative, fragile hope. 

“Next time we all start to feel that- that hunger, we should look into options. Venues that are trash and don’t get many folks. The late night stragglers,” said Ben.

“What if we crashed a party full of awful people, like upper class criminals and pedos,” Raphaella offered. “We could do some good, then.”

“If you hear about any parties like that, let me know,” said Basira. “If we’re forced to kill people, then I’d rather accomplish some vigilante justice than hurt innocents. But as it stands, those groups don’t exactly advertise their presence.” 

“We can at least lower the numbers of people killed,” Jordan said.

Jessica spoke up, “What if we tried to spread it out over the year instead of having one big concert? Just one or two of us singing or playing still has an effect, but not to the level of people killing each other. We could stop killing entirely then.”

The friends hesitated, the alley they had been walking through opened out onto a street teeming with drunks heading home, most bars had closed for the night.

“I don’t like it,” Alex said uneasily. “But if just one or two of us feels ‘hungry,’ then maybe they could take the edge off that way. It has been a year since our last performance, I want to believe that this thing is only a yearly event, a fluke.”

They left it on that note for the night.

Raphaella assured them that they could come pick up their stuff from her flat any time within the next week, they all had spare keys. 

The disgraced band slowly scattered into various taxis, some sharing the ride where housing situations were applicable, until it was only Jon and Basira left. Georgie was on her way to pick him up, and Basira’s place was along the way back to the flat they shared. 

Jon rubbed the remainder of the black face paint cracks off from around his eyes and where they spread down his cheeks like jagged tear tracks. The makeup smeared more than it should have dry, but Basira didn’t bring it up. He took a long drag of his cigarette, flicking the burnt up ashes on the tip off. The street had cleared substantially, leaving only them and some stragglers left.

Basira’s baton had disappeared at some point after she cleaned it. She wrinkled her nose at her phone, studiously ignoring the cloying scent of smoke and checking the news and police gossip chats obsessively for any clue that the venue they wrecked had been found. Nothing so far. 

“I want to find out why this is happening to us,” Jon said, interrupting the silence. 

Basira glanced over at him from her screen. “How? I’ve already been trying to find the police records for this type of thing. Either these things are incredibly rare and we were just unlucky, or they’ve been covering it up. I’m leaning to the latter.”

“Why’s that?” He breathed out away from her, shifting his weight to his heels. The slight breeze blew some smoke back her way despite his efforts.

She grimaced and stepped around to his other side, hating how the smoke always seemed to follow her. “I checked the records from last year, our two ‘events’ weren’t even mentioned. Only thing I found was a whole bunch of violent homicides reported around that time, but you and I both know that those people were dead at the scene.”

Jon nodded. “I was thinking about going at it from a different direction.” He took another drag. “More, uh, academic,” he waved a hand dismissively. “I think you should keep trying to find something out with the police, see if you can’t get above the cover ups. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get into the biggest repository of arcane and supernatural knowledge in the United Kingdom, the Magnus Institute.”

Basira started. “Jon, that place is a joke. It has the worst reputation of an academic institute in the city. That will ruin your career.”

“My life is already ruined,” he shot out. “If we are going to be spell bound to perform and kill once a year, then we’ll eventually be caught or killed. If anywhere will have any information about a supernatural band whose music drives those who listen to deadly violence, it will. I finish my Masters degree next spring, after that I’ll apply for a position at the Magnus Institute.”

At that, Georgie pulled up in her car. Jon hopped into the front passenger’s seat, letting Basira take the back and ending their conversation. Georgie confirmed Basira’s address and headed off, asking them about the other band members. At their reluctant expressions, she instead launched into conversation complaining about her own academic struggles.

Basira quietly wondered if Jon had told Georgie anything about what had happened with the Mechanisms.

**Author's Note:**

> A Praying Mantis.
> 
> Edit 6/14/2020: Fixed Alex's pronouns.  
> A guide for the Mechanisms as how I'm writing them:  
> Jonny d’Ville/Jonathan Sims (he/him), Ashes O'Reilly(they/them)/Basira Hussain(she/her), Gunpowder Tim/Jordan Kennedy (he/him), Drumbot Brian/Ben (he/him), Raphaella la Cognizi/Raphaella (she/her), Marius von Raum/Kofi (he/him), Ivy Alexandria(she/her)/Alex(he/him), The Toy Soldier(it/its or they/them)/Jessica(she/her). 
> 
> Please let me know if any of the pronouns are wrong! I hate misgendering people.


End file.
